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2015

As one of the most far-reaching accords in recent memory, the framework agreement reached by P5+1 and Iranian negotiators over Tehran’s nuclear program in Switzerland on April 2 generated no shortage of opinions from pundits. Balanced, in-depth assessments were scarcer.

By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School

At our International Council meeting in April, we celebrated the 80th birthday of the man who endowed and revitalized the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 1997: Bob Belfer. As Dean David Ellwood noted in tribute: “Bob Belfer’s investment in the Belfer Center and in the Kennedy School has changed the world—it really has.” Those of us who work here today are deeply grateful for Bob’s ongoing support for the Center’s efforts to build a more secure, peaceful world.

John Steinbruner, a friend, colleague, and alumnus of the Belfer Center, died April 16 following a long battle with cancer. Steinbruner was assistant director with the founding staff of what was initially called the Program for Science and International Affairs (now Belfer Center).

The challenge of climate change is profound. The risks it poses are dire,” said Harvard President Drew Faust as she opened discussions during Harvard’s Presidential Panel on Climate Change on April 13 at Sanders Theatre.

The Project on Managing the Atom joined the Netherlands government, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in convening a research symposium on the sidelines of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) 2015 review conference. The symposium, Fresh Ideas for the Future, took place on April 28 in the UN headquarters in New York City.

“The CIA, more than any other agency, [has been] instrumental in stopping terrorism and bringing terrorists to justice,” Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan said during a JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School in April. “Will we make mistakes in the future? Probably. But the Agency is a wonderful organization and…I am frustrated with its image because it doesn’t comport with reality.”

Dongsheng Wu has an important role in the development and implementation of China's plans to reduce carbon emissions and, subsequently, climate change. As director of the Department of Climate Change at the Shanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission, Wu is responsible for developing a greenhouse gas emissions policy for Shanxi, a region with the highest coal production and highest energy intensity in China.

The Belfer Center’s Energy Technology Innovation Policy group is co-organizing a major workshop with China’s Tsinghua University on “Energy Technology Innovation on the “Backdrop of the U.S./China Emissions Deal.” Belfer Center’s Professors Laura Diaz Anadon, Henry Lee and Venky Narayanamurti are planning the June event with Tsinghua University Professor Su Jun, a former Science, Technology, and Public Policy fellow.

Former Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd is a senior fellow with the Belfer Center and the Inaugural Director of the Asia Society Policy Institute. A longtime China scholar, Mr. Rudd headed a major project at the Belfer Center during the past year on alternative futures for U.S.-China relations over the next decade. In April, he released a report titled U.S.-China 21: The Future of U.S.-China Relations Under Xi Jinping. In this Q&A, we ask Mr. Rudd about his report and the future of U.S.-China relations.

David Keith is the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, housed at the Belfer Center. He has worked at the interface between climate science, energy technology, and public policy for 20 years and has received numerous honors for his work, including the MIT prize for excellence in experimental physics and TIME magazine’s selection as one of its Heroes of the Environment.

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Events Calendar

We host a busy schedule of events throughout the fall, winter and spring. Past guests include: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former Vice President Al Gore, and former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev.